Orks Lore Explained: Where the Orks Came From, Gork and Mork, the WAAAGH! and the Great Ork Wars

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The Orks are the loud, green, war-loving aliens of Warhammer 40,000. They are everywhere in the galaxy, they grow from spores, and they fight because fighting is the thing they enjoy most. If you are new to the setting, they are also the funniest faction, which makes it easy to forget how dangerous they are. A good first step is the starter-friendly Orks Combat Patrol box, but first, here is who they are and where they came from.

Lore page, last updated November 15, 2026. Summarised in our own words from codexes, campaign books and Black Library novels. Orks do not write history down, so much of their past is told by Imperial scholars, Aeldari myths or the Orks themselves, none of whom are very reliable. Where versions differ, we say so.

The Orks in 30 seconds

Where did the Orks come from?

Nobody in the galaxy really knows, and the Orks do not care. A popular theory links them to the Krork, a warrior species the Old Ones made during the War in Heaven, the ancient war against the Necrons and their star-god masters, the C'tan. The Krork were built to defend the Old Ones' last strongholds against the Necrons and the Enslavers, and the Aeldari remember them as nasty foes. The Krork were said to be bigger, smarter and more organised than modern Orks. Whether Krork and Orks are really the same species is still unknown. The Orks tell their own story: they say they were made by the Brain Boyz, super-clever Snotlings who bred the grots as servants and the Orks as warriors, then slid back into being ordinary Snotlings and left their weapons and tech to the Orks.

The Old Ones lost that war, and their creations were left with no masters. Over millions of years the Krork slowly turned into the Orks we know today: still tough and still built for war, but far less clever and much more chaotic. Treat all of this as theory rather than settled fact. The lore drops hints, and some Orks even seem to remember bits of it, but Games Workshop has never laid it out in full.

Spores, grots and squigs

Orks do not have families. An adult Ork sheds spores all the time, and when one dies its body releases a big burst of them. The spores sink into the ground and grow into underground fungus-like nests. Out of those come not just Orks, but their whole little world: the small, sneaky Gretchin (grots), the even smaller Snotlings, and all kinds of squigs, the round, toothy creatures Orks eat, ride and sometimes wear as hair.

Spores can sit in the ground for years before anything grows, so a world that has been invaded by Orks can be troubled by them for hundreds of years. This is why the Imperium finds Orks almost impossible to wipe out. Every battle you fight against them seeds the ground with the next generation.

Orks also grow as long as they keep fighting and winning. A small Boy can become a Nob, and a Nob can become a Warboss, getting bigger and stronger every step. Rank in an Ork mob is simple: the biggest Ork is in charge, and he stays in charge until someone bigger knocks him down.

Gork, Mork and the WAAAGH!

Orks believe in two gods, Gork and Mork. Gork is brutal but kunnin' and Mork is kunnin' but brutal. In Ork terms, Mork hits you when you are not looking, and Gork hits you really hard when you are. Orks often forget which is which and fight over it. When an Ork dies, it hopes to go to the Great Green, where Ork souls wait to be reborn if they pleased the gods enough. What makes Orks unusual is that their gods seem to be real. Orks give off a low level of psychic energy, and when many of them gather and get excited, all that energy builds up. Ork belief feeds their gods in the warp, which makes them one of the few races whose faith actually seems to work in their favour.

That shared energy is also the root of the WAAAGH!. The word means the Orks' battle cry, their love of war and, most of all, a great migrating crusade. It starts when a strong Warboss beats the local tribes into line and sets off to find a bigger fight. Every victory draws in more tribes, so a WAAAGH! can swell from one warband into a tide that crosses whole sectors. It is never a lasting alliance: once it is beaten, runs out of enemies or loses its leader, it usually falls apart into squabbling bands.

You will also hear that "red ones go faster": that Ork gear works because Orks believe it does. Plenty of fans and some Adeptus Mechanicus thinkers in the lore think the psychic energy of a crowd of Orks helps their junk-built guns and trucks hold together. The lore says the question is still open, and other sources treat it as a joke rather than a hard rule, so it is safest to call it a popular idea, not proven fact.

Clans and Oddboyz

Most Orks also belong to a clan. A clan is less a tribe and more a style, and one warband can contain Orks from several. The six best-known are:

• Goffs: the biggest, meanest fighters, who love hand-to-hand combat and dress in black.
• Evil Sunz: speed-mad, red-painted bikers and buggy drivers.
• Bad Moons: rich show-offs whose teef seem to grow faster, so they buy the shiniest guns.
• Deathskulls: blue-painted scavengers and looters.
• Snakebites: old-fashioned Orks who prefer boars and squigs to machines.
• Blood Axes: the clan that has picked up human ideas such as camouflage and tactics, which other Orks find a bit suspicious.

Then there are the Oddboyz, Orks born with special knowledge. Meks build every gun, truck and stompa from scrap. Painboyz are the doctors, who will happily swap your arm for a better one whether you need it or not. Weirdboyz are Ork psykers, who soak up the WAAAGH! energy of nearby Orks and blast it out of their heads, sometimes taking their own head with it. Runtherds keep the grots in line.

Ork money is teef. Because Ork teeth grow back, a bit like a shark's, the currency never runs out, and the easiest way to get more is to punch someone. Old teef also go bad over time, so nobody can hoard them, which keeps prices steady. One toof gets you a good squig pie and a mug of fungus beer, a bag of them buys a cheap Warbuggy, and a big flashy Battlewagon can cost a Warboss hundreds.

Odd facts about Ork bodies and minds

Ork skin is green because their cells carry a kind of green algae that lives with them. Part animal and part fungus, an Ork has fungus doing the job of some of its organs and padding the rest, which is why they shrug off wounds that would kill a human. Their blood can be red, purple or black, depending on what they last ate. They do not need sleep, though they will nap if there is nothing better to do. Orks also speak their own crude language with lots of dialects and borrowed Imperial Gothic words, and while most cannot write, they do use simple glyphs to draw rough maps. Not every Ork joins a clan either: Freebooterz are space pirates made of outcasts, the most famous being Kaptin Badrukk, and Feral Orks are primitive tribes cut off from the rest of Ork society.

Great Ork wars in history

Orks were fighting humans long before the Imperium existed, back in the Dark Age of Technology. Legend says they were the first aliens humanity ever met: on some forgotten airless world, the first Ork and the first human took one look at each other, drew pistols and shot each other dead at the same moment. During the Great Crusade, the Emperor and his Primarchs fought a vast Ork empire ruled by the Warlord Urlakk Urg and centred on Ullanor. Horus won that war, and it was after the victory there that the Emperor named him Warmaster, one of the events that led towards the Horus Heresy.

The most frightening Ork in Imperial history is the Beast. In 544.M32 the Beast united much of the Ork race and led the largest WAAAGH! ever seen, which nearly conquered the whole galaxy and hit the Imperium at the very top: its attack moons crushed the Imperial Fists Chapter and threatened Terra itself. It was finally killed on Ullanor. This war is told in the twelve-book series The Beast Arises, which opens with I Am Slaughter by Dan Abnett.

In the 41st millennium the biggest name is Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, a Goff who was badly wounded, had part of his skull replaced with metal, and woke up convinced that Gork and Mork talk to him. He led the Second and Third Wars for Armageddon, where his long rivalry with Commissar Yarrick began. In the current era, Ghazghkull has been named the Beast of Armageddon by the Imperium, he leads the Great WAAAGH! across many warzones, and Orks everywhere hail him as the prophet of Gork and Mork.

Why Orks are scarier than they look

It is easy to laugh at Orks, but Imperial thinkers worry about them more than almost any other race. They breed without stopping, they cannot be reasoned with, they learn from their enemies, and they only get bigger and better organised under a strong leader. Many in-universe scholars warn that if the Orks ever truly united, nothing in the galaxy could stop them. They fight the Tyranids and the forces of the Chaos Gods with the same happy rage.

Orks on the tabletop

On the battlefield, Orks are an army of big mobs, fast vehicles and close combat. They are a great choice if you like converting models from spare parts, since Ork vehicles are meant to look hand-made, and almost any colour scheme can be justified by a clan. Our Orks faction guide covers how to start a collection.

Where to read more

• Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! (Nate Crowley): Ghazghkull's life story, told to the Inquisition by his grot banner bearer, Makari, a grot who has been reborn many times. Funny and surprisingly moving.
• Brutal Kunnin' (Mike Brooks): a cheerful Ork adventure that follows the Ork Ufthak Blackhawk. Its sequel is Da Big Dakka.
• Warboss (Mike Brooks): Ork bosses from the different clans battle to become the next warboss.
• The Beast Arises: the series about the War of the Beast, starting with Dan Abnett's I Am Slaughter.
• Codex: Orks: the army rules and a lot of background on clans, Oddboyz and famous Warbosses.

FAQ

Were the Orks made by the Old Ones?

Possibly. A popular theory links them to the Krork, a war species the Old Ones built for the War in Heaven, but nobody knows if Krork and Orks are the same species. The Orks' own legend credits the Brain Boyz instead.

How do Orks reproduce?

Through spores. Orks shed them constantly and release many more when they die. The spores can wait in the ground for years. The spores grow into Orks, grots, snotlings and squigs.

Do red Ork vehicles really go faster?

Orks are sure they do. Many fans and some Adeptus Mechanicus thinkers believe the Orks' shared psychic energy helps their gear work, but the lore calls it unproven and other sources treat it as a running joke.

Who is the most famous Ork?

Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, the warlord of the Armageddon wars. In older history, the Beast, whose WAAAGH! began in 544.M32, came closest to destroying the Imperium.

More lore: read about Ghazghkull Thraka, Commissar Yarrick, the Necrons, the Tyranids and the Great Rift.

Lore summarised in our own words from Black Library novels, codexes and community wikis. Warhammer and all related names are trademarks of Games Workshop; WIZY is an independent fan site.